


choked by overgrowth

by CloudDreamer



Series: a long rotted bouquet [4]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Character Study, Dissociation, F/F, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23804122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer
Summary: Ivy Alexandria isn't real. She's what everyone else wants her to be. So why does she hurt?
Relationships: Ivy Alexandria & Dr Carmilla, Ivy Alexandria/Raphaella la Cognizi
Series: a long rotted bouquet [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714564
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	choked by overgrowth

Ivy Alexandria is buried beneath the overgrowth.

Vines wrap around her, snaking through every inch of her flesh and choking her, holding her back. Her skull is ablaze, the resounding echo of click, click, click. It’s never quiet inside her mind, a mind that is not her own and will never be her own. Her life isn’t divided into before and after like the others. They know of different times. Better times, maybe? She doesn’t know. She can’t know. It doesn’t fit into the paradigm. The others love her, but they don’t know her. Nobody knows her. Ivy doesn’t know herself. She’s all sharp edges and numbers and gears, cutting away at anything she thinks to claim as her own. She owns it. She’d rather be in control of the knowledge, won’t let it control her. 

She can be useful like this, and if she’s useful, then she’s worthy of love. However they see her, that’s how she wants to be. She can be quiet when she’s not spoken to or she can be loud and unprecedented if that’s what they want. Want, want. Was she supposed to be like this? Her mind is thick, crowded with trillions of words and tales, but there’s no room left in there fo her. She takes bits and pieces from here, bits and pieces from there. She tears off a bloom and wears it in her hair, and they’ll say she’s beautiful, just as Doctor Carmilla smiles because she’s the one who planted that seed, nurtured it, watched it grow. 

She can’t understand the words carved inside her. She’ll open herself up and tug at pieces of herself, brain tossed across the floor. They’ll reassemble so neatly, in those perfect lines, and she can’t read what’s written there. Languages are easy for her, but the words carved so delicately and precisely, with Doctor Carmilla’s love, are a mystery. 

The last mystery. The only mystery. The others, they don’t want to know. They can’t want to know. They’d rather Doctor Carmilla be a monster, plain and simple. But there’s nothing simple about monsters, nothing simple at all. Ivy knows the stories, knows everything Doctor Carmilla is supposed to be. To many, she’s a hero. To others, she’s a hurricane, tearing worlds apart with as much malevolence as a force of nature. And sometimes she’s even kind. 

She’s kind in stories, and she’s kind when Ivy acts right. She is kind when Ivy puts the pieces in the right order, arranges her words like a puzzle, and moves like a marionette. But she’s not any different when she’s with the others, is she? She’s not any more genuine. Everything she is and everything she says is a lie, because there’s no such thing as The Real Ivy. There’s no shell to crack. She thinks she loves them, but what’s love really? A concoction of chemicals? A series of specific actions? 

Ivy doesn’t think she has feelings until they’re all there at once. Until one day her strings are cut. All her ropes loosen. There’s tears in her eyes, and she didn’t know she could cry, why is she crying? Why’s her head on this new girl’s shoulder, why are her wings wrapping around Ivy’s shoulders like a hug? Hugs are what you do for the emotionally unstable, for those who need support, but Ivy doesn’t need support. She is support. She is always there with a number, and numbers are always the same, no matter how who is looking at them. You can run the same equation a thousand times; it won’t change. 

You can hurt Ivy Alexandria however you like; she won’t fight. Unless she has permission. Unless she’s supposed to fight. She’s run the tests. But her fingers are trembling, no matter how hard she tries to still them. The choking in her throat isn’t going away, and she can’t seem to steady her breathing. She screams, and she screams, and she thinks she screams for a thousand years. She doesn’t know how long it’s been when she manages to breathe again— she doesn’t know. That’s not supposed to be possible. She’s a broken doll now. Worthless. 

Doctor Carmilla is gone now, but it wasn’t just her. It was never just her. The others say they love her like she was, but they don't know— they can't know that she isn't. She doesn't' exist. Their Ivy is nothing more than a collection of traits they’d like, all the bad parts of her were long since pruned, but now she knows how to scream and sob and now she wants… 

She wants more. She wants to be somebody for this stranger, so familiar and so alien. She wants to love, to be more than just worthy of love, and when she kisses Raphaella, she manages to convince herself there’s something beneath the skin. Something that’s just hers.


End file.
